Tag Archives: living on saint croix

This enchanted window, with powers easily trumping C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe, is the only place in my entire house where I can send a text or make a call. Its perfect alignment under Jupiter, the Pleiades and Orion means that it a veritable mitochondria of cell reception power, quite possibly the best reception on the island.

Ah yes, I remember the days when I could safely make a phone call whilst riding in a car. The likelihood of losing the person on the line being nearly zilch, I would bang on without a care in the world as Chris toted me hither and thither to whereither.

Not so on the island. Telecommunication to the outside world exists in three states of being (ranked in order of “most likely to succeed” to “most likely to fail and possibly piss off the person on the phone:”)

1) At the Magic Window. Foolproof. The only down side of using the magic window is that you open a portal to other worlds, and sometimes– not often, but occasionally– otherworldy beings enter through that open portal and into our world. In fact, I do believe that is how the mongoose came to reside in Saint Croix.

Riki Tiki Tavi, Mere Minutes after Coming Through the Portal

2) While waiting in the car at one of the good cell reception locations. These include but are not limited to: Sunny Isle, Golden Rock plaza, Gallow’s Bay, and generally the Plaza grocery stores. Does not include anything around Cane Bay in my cell-seeking experience.

3) If, after assessing the nature of my call, the average chattiness of the person I need to speak with, and achieving a fairly good understanding of the cell reception abilities on the road we are on, I might try to have a conversation while the vehicle is in motion. This often leads to dropped calls, but could be convenient for those people who tend to chat way beyond the topic’s expiration date.

One day I will figure out how to harness the powers of the Island Rooster:

In Christiansted, about to lose his shit.

Those guys must be communicating messages other than that of the mere sunrise, since they can be found whooping it up without provocation all day long. I think we must be kindred souls.